From the forming
of BATHORY on the 16th of March
1983
to a Scandinavian metal attack in January 1984

It
is an irony per say, that while on hand you could agree hardly
any other act in or out of the sphere of extreme metal have gone through
quite as many changes and transcended from one end of the spectrum to
the other as BATHORY have in the past 20 years, one could also attest
that few acts can claim to have pertained quite such a clearly identifiable
sound and feel to virtually everything they've done in the same span
of time.

And
arguably, very few bands are more frequently referred to as the source
of inspiration or the reason for picking up an instrument, to form a
band or for that sudden change of musical direction.

Whether
it's brutal Black Metal at one end of that spectrum or epic Nordic Metal
on the other, for the past 20 years BATHORY have acted as a guiding
light paving the way for others in a pioneering mode while maintaining
their originality and trademark atmosphere.

And
20 years since the birth of a legend - scalps counted, wounds healed
and the banners of victory lining the perimeters of their kingdom -
BATHORY can virtually single-handedly claim to be the act that brought
the acoustic guitars into an otherwise electric environment, the act
that gave multitrack backing vocals a home, the act that added elaborate
carpets of sound effects to an otherwise basic backdrop of metal, and
the act that brought the strings, the horns, the whole symphonic and
opera-like touches into what otherwise was quite traditional rock instrumentation.

The
stories would be brought in from all sorts of worlds. From the dark
side of life and death, through the Satanic and the Demonic dimensions
to modern chaotic society. The journey could take us down foreign shores
in flames and end up in the great hall up high. The Witches, sorceries
and the various cults would all be described in detail.

The
broadsword, the battle-axe and the silverhammer were the weapons most
frequently chosen. The means of transport would either be a stallion
born by the wind, a chariot of fire or jagged leather wings. And speeding
through the sky were either nuclear missiles, fire eyed demons or stars
crashing towards a dying earth. Either the horizon or the clouds ablaze.
Either fire or blood raining from a darkening sky. Apocalyptic stories
or tales of adventure and bravery. BATHORY mastered every aspect and
ingredient.

And
whether the scene was the fiery pits of hell, the golden throne of heaven,
a snow clad wasteland or the streets of a modern city in social decline,
BATHORY was there.

But
the birth of a legend was very modest and very innocent. And it took
place at a time when the scene looked very much different, when the
fanzines and the bands were one, when the CD format was unheard of,
and when the supreme word was metal. Only metal..

And
it all happened more than twenty years ago....

It
was at 1300 hours Wednesday the 16th of March 1983 that the three young
men who would make up the first BATHORY line-up, met up outside Musikbörsen,
a local music store in Kungsholmen a western borough to central Stockholm.

Ads
had been tacked on musicians wanted-boards in music stores and record
shops around down town Stockholm by then 17-year old Västerort
residing Quorthon. The ads called for members in order to form a band
"...in the Exploited, GBH, Motörhead and Black Sabbath
style...".

Responding
to the ad were 18 year old drummer Jonas a.k.a. Vans McBurger, and 18
year old bass player Fredrick - Freddan hereafter - a.k.a. Hanoi, both
residing in Nockeby Western Stockholm.

For
the next 13 months, this trio would make up the infant stage of an act
that would eventually not only be reserved an honorary place in the
history of extreme metal, but also considered pioneers and masters alike.

-
I remember looking for musicians outside my then natural punk circuits.
All the metal musicians I knew were either not exactly what I was
looking for or not vacant, or simply not interested in the ideas
I had for a band.

-
When you're that age - 16-17 years old - due to a lack of life experience,
you're pretty much fundamental about a lot of things and even small
details may make a huge difference. I would discard a bass player
back then if he was into stuff like Maiden or would perm his hair.

-
I didn't look Oi-punk, but I was listening more to that stuff than
I did NWOBHM stuff in the year prior to forming BATHORY. Apart from
listening to KISS when growing up, all I knew about metal at the
time around starting BATHORY, was basically Motörhead and Black
Sabbath. But I knew that what I wanted to do sure as hell was a
lot closer to metal than Oi.

-
So the little metal I knew became all the more important for the
sound of early BATHORY. The energy and speed was obviously Oi, but
the sound was absolutely Motörhead and the gloom was of course
Black Sabbath.

-
I must have tacked up to a hundred notes on musicians’ wanted-boards
in every music store and small record shop all over Stockholm. I
used to ride the sub from one end of the city to the other with
a roll of leaflets that I had xeroxed at a library.

-
I saw that as a last resort to get a hold of guy’s I didn’t
already know or hadn’t already played with in other bands.
I figured, if I hadn’t yet formed the band I envisioned, it
could only mean none of the people I knew were the right guy’s.

Compared
to the much wider horizon and knowledge of Hardrock and Heavy Metal
that Jonas and Freddan brought with them - between them, they must have
owned one of the largest and most complete collections of Hardrock and
Heavy Metal albums in all of Stockholm for youngsters their age - Quorthon’s
musical background could be considered as only basic Hardrock and Heavy
Metal.

Although
his album collection included the Lp’s of Black Sabbath, Motörhead,
KISS, Saxon, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, it would nevertheless not
be the purely metal but mainly the punk and Oi-punk influences he brought
along with him that would have the most significance when early BATHORY
began to write original material.

Jonas
and Freddan knew each other since elementary school days and had played
together in a couple of bands prior to this March afternoon, one of
the short lived hobby bands just prior to BATHORY being straight forward
metal band DIE CAST.

And
from going through a string of groups of various styles in the past
eight years - among others the Dragons & Demons type of band AGNOSTICUM
and the primitive and violent punk outfit STRIDSKUK - Quorthon felt
that the time had come to amalgamate the gloom of Black Sabbath, sound
of Motörhead and the newly found frenzy of GBH.

Right
from the outset, the intention was to play faster, harder and more brutal
than any other act known to any of the three of them. Or at least it
was to Quorthon...

-
All I knew was that I hadn’t yet heard in any one band the
exact right combination of style and sound that I had longed to
hear for a couple of years. And so I figured the best way to actually
get to do that must be to actually form that very band myself. Which
really wasn't that easy a task. All friends of mine into Hardrock
and Metal in those days who themselves were playing an instrument,
were into acts I couldn't stand.

-
The recent NWOBHM thing had spurred a few young Stockholm based
bands to go for something less Stormbringeresque or Priest-like,
but otherwise it was all Rainbow "On Stage" or something
not too far away from AC/DC. In other words not too fresh or original.

-
By that time - in 1981 and 1982 - I had literally played my Motörhead
albums to bits. And my Black Sabbath records would barely hold together.
So whatever it was I'd form one day, it was basically bound to be
something that picked up from where I felt Motörhead and Black
Sabbath had come to a halt.

-
I believe most really early BATHORY compositions like "Sacrifice",
"Satan My Master", "Witchcraft", "You Don't
Move Me (I Don't Give A Fuck)" and "Die In Fire"
is proof enough of Motörhead's influence on early BATHORY.

-
But when in '82 a friend of mine borrowed me a tape containing the
then newly released GBH album "City Baby Attacked by Rats",
I was caught completely off guard by parts of that album. Here was
the sound and energy that I had been longing for. That album would
have as much an effect on me as "Ace
of Spades"
and was very important for the coarse that BATHORY would take right
from the outset.

- Punk had already been an integral in my musical upbringing since
the days I bought the Sex Pistols' single "God Save The Queen/Did
You No Wrong" the week it was released in Sweden.

- A lot of what BATHORY tried to do during the early 90's was to
pick up from that soup of punk and street stuff, something I felt
BATHORY had lost a lot of during the big drums, multitrack backing
vocals, heavy arrangements and complex instrumentation days of the
late 80's.

- To this day, the "Never Mind the Bollocks" album is
the album I listen to most frequently besides KISS' "Alive!".
But hearing GBH in late '82 early '83 was something completely different,
and a booster when it came to finally deciding on forming the band.

Around
the time the second album THE RETURN OF THE DARKNESS AND EVIL was released, a theory frequently referred to as the "Venom-clones"
theory began to shape a lot of people's notion of this brand new act
from Stockholm. Probably due to the fact there was very little else
to compare with at the time, BATHORY - along with probably most other
extreme metal acts of the early 80's - would be regarded as an act influenced
by Venom exclusively.

The
fact that BATHORY had only just heard about this Newcastle act when
interviews for the debut album were conducted in late 1984 and early
1985, was a fact that seemed all the more pointless to defend in the
maelstrom of disbelief that would begin to shape much of the media climate
in the mid 80's.

And
for the duration of the dark and evil phase of BATHORY, the Venom-clones
theory would be kept very much alive by assorted members of the metal
press that joined the anti-BATHORY ranks even at that early stage. To
this day there are still those who consistently adhere to the Venom-clones
theory. Some people will apparently just never wake up and smell their
own bullshit...

-
If you listen to GBH tracks like “Sick
Boy”, “Wardogs”,
“I
am the Hunted” or “Gunned
Down”, it’s just so obvious where early BATHORY
came from in terms of rhythm, song construction and energy. Even
when listening to something like The Exploited’s “UK
82”, "Jimmy
Boyle" or “They
Won’t Stop”, you need not to be a professor
of music to hear that the base for early BATHORY was primarily Oi-punk
and not something that came out of Newcastle.

-
Not that this is an attempt to make an excuse, or trying to turn
no back on anything, or re-writing history here, it's a fact: BATHORY's
roots were closer to Oi-punk than anything else. Mix the sound and
style of Motörhead with the gloom and darkness of Black Sabbath,
and let that rest on a solid base of GBH. What you get is something
that's raw, primitive, noisy and intense early BATHORY.

The
GBH album "City Baby Attacked by Rats" (1982).
This album would have as much an influence on BATHORY's initial phase
as Motörhead's "Ace of Spades". The fact that early BATHORY
to a greatextent
was heavily influenced by Oi-punk and not by something that came out
of
Newcastle, was a fact that was sadly lost in the wake of the "Venom-clones"
theory
initiated by the scoffers back in the mid 80's. Amazingly this desperate
theory
is being kept alive to this day by some boneheads.

-
And while on the Oi-punk note: besides GBH and The Exploited, there
were other Oi-punk acts that would also mean a lot in forming a
foundation for early BATHORY. Lesser known bands like Riot/Clone
(not the US hair-band but the British Oi-band) and Disorder were
almost as important as GBH and The Exploited. But no friends of
mine into Metal knew anything about no Oi-punk, let alone these
bands or Anti-Nowhere League etc.

-
By the way, in possibly late '86 I was in London to overlook the
distribution of the then small BATHORY back catalogue and the up
and coming release of UNDER THE SIGN OF THE BLACK MARK.
Our distributor in the UK territory back in those days was Music
For Nation/Under One Flag. And while at their London office I found
myself seated in this couch right next to The Exploited vocalist
Wattie.

-
And though I - like everybody else - had severe problems understanding
his more than readily heavy Scottish accent, I believe we were still
able to at least communicate at some level. And for me it was a
thrill since I had listened to their "Troops of Tomorrow"
album at least a thousand times by then.

The
amazingly funny and high energy
Exploited vocalist Wattie. A genuine trouper.

-
The funny thing was, later when asked about how much an influence
on BATHORY that Venom might have been and I told people I heard
Venom first time after the release of the first BATHORY
album, people just wouldn’t believe me. And when I mentioned
GBH, nobody knew what the hell I was talking about.

-
That’s proof enough the demarcation line between what you
were suppose to listen to or know anything about if you were into
Black Metal or general metal, was a very definitive line even back
then. I thought that was strange, especially when considering the
obvious similarities in terms of sound and energy between early
BATHORY and Oi-punk.

- Not that it matters much today, but for those who still disbelieve
me I'll be happy to inform any disbeliever that I know for a fact
I heard a Venom album first time just after the release
of the first BATHORY album. It was because of our debut
album released on our own label Black Mark - which really didn’t
exist but in our minds - but through Tyfon Records, that
Neat Records recognized Tyfon to be a potential distributor of Neat
albums in Scandinavia.

-
Hence a promotion package was delivered including some compilations
albums, some Raven records and the first and second Venom album.
I picked all of those Neat albums up at the office one day and had
a listen. It must have been in early December 1984.

-
I can’t remember what I thought about it. But it certainly
didn’t effect the BATHORY material at that time, with the
exception I might have been encouraged to deepen the Satanic element
more than had been the case with our debut, which - looking back
- seems more like horror-comics or demonic and vampire paperback
stuff rather than a sincere or fundamentally or academic Satanic
record at every level.

-
When I was doing the first dozen of interviews a couple of months
after the release of our debut album and the Venom-clones theory
was brought up first time, I think a lot of people might have thought
I was just making things up when I started babbling about Oi-punk
and claimed not having been influenced by Venom the slightest.

- Of course today I perfectly well understand the conclusions
people made at the time. Both Venom and BATHORY independently borrowed
the goat and the pentagram from the paraphernalia and symbolism
of the Satanic cult and literature, which incidentally Mötley
Crüe did as well. When I realized that Venom even had recorded
a track in honor of the old blood countess, what could I do but
sigh?!

-
It matters very little to me these days if people still hold on
to the Venom-clones theory. If continuing to believe in old assumptions
rather than accepting the facts from me makes their pitiful little
lives somewhat more bearable to live, then so be it.

But on this afternoon in March 1983, all these theories and assumptions
were all yet to happen, as the trio attempted to agree on which covers
to play initially. There was nothing about this day that said it was
going to be a legendary date in the history of extreme metal, no bells
tolling, no applause or fireworks going off. None of the three young
men even knew how to spell "black metal" or what it was had
anybody asked them.

To these three young men, the underground movement was an unheard of
phenomenon. The tape trading days hadn't yet started as far as Sweden
was concerned. The endless list of subcategories by which bands and
albums would be filed was far into the future. And all notions of similar
young men forming similar groups around the world sharing the same dream,
was of course nil. It was just the three of them. No rules. No boundaries.
And miles of virgin land to explore musically.

Having just re-painted his newly bought candy-red Ibanez Destroyer to
a more appropriate jet-black color the night before, Quorthon came to
this first session equipped with a tobacco Les Paul and proceeded to
arrange his settings on a stack of Peavey amplifiers.

Although impressive and worthy one of their heroes Lemmy, the huge red
and white Rickenbacker bass operated by Freddan would suffer the fate
of having to wear the same set of bass strings for the entire life span
of the first line-up. No harm done, since hardly any string other than
the E-string would ever be played anyway. At least it had the great
fortune to be amplified through a Marshall stack.

The drum kit operated by Jonas was made up from at least twenty different
parts. And it probably also originated from twenty different drum kits,
owned by twenty other drummers who all must have been wondering whatever
became of that snare or cymbal. Eventually - it turned out - perhaps
not even the amplifiers were all that lawfully purchased.

A
torn table and a small refrigerator accompanied the two sand-colored
container-find mohair couches that occupied the far end of the basement
that became BATHORY's place of birth. And for the duration of the time
that the band would consider this basement its home, never would that
fridge house anything else other than a plastic margarine carton containing
the excrement of the vocalist of the band previously occupying the place.

No
effort was ever made to try to make the basement soundproof. So whether
they wanted to or not, during the very hot summer of 1983 - air vents
wide open - the unsuspecting pedestrians passing by at street level
could catch the ear-deafening brutal noise of a legendary act to be.

Perhaps
the sheer volume might have resulted in the band eventually being kicked-out,
memories are blurred about that. Nevertheless, it was this first rehearsal
place of BATHORY that saw the birth of a legend. It would also be this
basement that got to see auditioning vocalists and lead-guitarists come
and go faster than a buck in Vegas.

-
For some strange reason - most recently coming straight from a three-piece
Oi-punk outfit - I had envisioned that a metal group would probably
have to consist of five members. I figured not only would a metal
band have to have one really brilliant lead-guitarist but also one
guy that was the sole vocalist of the band. This would - besides
the rhythm section - mean five guys.

-
And since I didn't see myself as a vocalist really and I obviously
wasn't a brilliant lead-guitarist, I would continue to look out
for a vocalist and a lead-guitarist even after having rehearsed
with Jonas and Freddan for a while. Had I found the right vocalist
and lead-guitarist at that time, it is not very unlikely that BATHORY
would have been a five-piece band. Who knows what that might have
meant in terms of sound and style, lyrics and what have you. The
albums - now regarded as legendary - might never have happened at
all.

-
Although I would eventually get used to down and outright idiots
coming to the auditions in the years 1984-1986, back in 1983 I wasn't
quite prepared for the effect BATHORY's music and my ideas would
have on really good and talented vocalists and lead-guitarists coming
to the auditions.

- There's this famous story about this one guy who came to audition
for the band in the spring of '83. I only remember him as Stefan
with blond curly hair and dressed in denim from top to toe. He was
a very talented lead-guitarist and very eager to not only play but
also to join. He went on to guarantee us that no matter what we
sounded like he'd join us because he hadn't played in a band "since
last year" or something like that.

-
I should have sensed that something wasn't clicking here already
when I noticed him - quite frightened looking - staring at all the
chains, inverted crosses and things hanging on the walls. So when
we sat him down on a chair in one end of that basement, plugged
our gear in and performed one of our early compositions - it might
have been "Satan my Master" or "Live in Sin"
- and he quickly hurled his cherished white Fender Stratocaster
back into its case and basically ran out through the door and up
the stairs, I wasn't the least surprised.

-
So if he's still around out there somewhere, he can at least boast
about having been a would-be member of BATHORY for a whopping one
and a half minute......

Quorthon
would also met up with a handful of vocalists and lead-guitarists
answering to the ads tacked to musicians-wanted boards around town.
But none of these meetings would ever result in an audition as the
lyrical content of Quorthon's earliest compositions - shown to all
the vocalists - didn't look or sound like "...anything David
Coverdale or Joey Tempest would ever sing...".

For
a short while during the end of May 1983, a usually empty summerhouse
situated in Vikinghill (!) halfway out into the beautiful Stockholm
archipelago, would fill the role of a base for the young band. A one
hour buss ride from downtown Stockholm - with the boys carrying at least
the guitar and bass with them almost every time - would take them out
into a picturesque scenery as far away from the harshness of their music
as you could possibly get.

- But when one day we found a way to open up the wine cellar and
had a try at rehearsing while being flat-on-our-teen-asses drunk,
that sort of meant the end of our summerhouse-in-the-archipelago
days.

-
Imagine yourself a 17-year old guitarist after he had poured down
a quart of 40% Malibu on an empty stomach and then tries to follow
the beat played by an equally drunk drummer, let alone trying to
play the same song. We just had a laugh.

-
That plus driving a hi-jacked high-speed boat - zigzagging between
the Finland-ferries - across the water at night, drunk as skunks,
with a ghetto blaster playing Motörhead at full volume. What
a sight that must have been.…..

So
the trio was soon back in the city. This time - in early September -
the gear would be set up in the huge catacombs under an industrial building
in Västberga. The band would be allowed to play only after working
hours. But in reward they could then play as loud as they wanted to,
as they would have the entire area all to themselves.

-
That place had such a phenomenal sound it was like playing in this
gigantic cave. So big was the sound in fact, that we soon realized
we had to move all the gear into a small side-room. The length of
the echo in that catacomb made it impossible to keep the beat. It
was actually like the sound of TWILIGHT OF THE GODS,
only eight years too soon.

The
lyrical content of the earliest BATHORY compositions was made up from
a mixed bag of blood and gore, demons and witches, and sort of a comic
magazine quality innocent Satanism. One can get a good idea of what
the lyrics were like in these days from reading the lyrics to tracks
like "Satan My Master", "Witchcraft", "Sacrifice"
or "Die In Fire", some of the earliest compositions available
on official releases (JUBILEUM VOLUME I, II
and III).

The
topics as such were not always favored by the other two members of the
first line-up though.

-
There was a difference between us in terms of background,
influence and what have you on all levels. Not only would I be asked
to cut down on the fast stuff and blood-dripping lyrics, but at
one point Jonas and Freddan inquired me to write material more in
the Maiden or Priest vein. And I couldn't do any of that. I didn't
have any Maiden or Priest albums.

-
We even looked odd walking down the street all three of us together.
Jonas - with his big hair - would wear casual everyday kind of clothes,
and sometimes a gunbelt. Freddan would be all denim, band T-shirts,
sneakers and tons of badges & patches. Whereas I was usually
all black leather from top to toe, with studs and spikes piercing
my leather jacket, black leather boots and no patches & badges
of any kind. What a pity there are only very few photo's from this
first year.

During
that summer of 1983 - as Jonas and Freddan went to London on a vacation
- things seemed bogged down in a quagmire though. Perhaps a split had
occurred already when requests for material in the Iron Maiden vein
was brought forth, a request Quorthon felt he was unable to serve with
the exception for one half-hearted "Transylvania"-like composition
that symptomatically would never receive a title.

The
split in terms of direction and style was evident right from the start.
A more traditional and straightforward style of metal and hardrock was
advocated by two thirds of the band, with Quorthon holding on to the
brutality and breakneck speed argument.

So
for the duration of 1983, the main objective for meeting up once or
twice a week at whatever rehearsal place the band would occupy for the
time being, would simply be to have fun, make some noise and to crack
whatever jokes they had picked up since last. Out of this came an attitude
to "the band" that wasn't too serious at all.

But
with two thirds of the band away on vacation in the summer, Quorthon
would nevertheless decide to take advantage of the occasion to call
in two mutual friends and ask them to help him out. Keen on trying out
new material that never seemed to stick with the rest of the group,
Quorthon figured a bunch of brutal Oi-punk musicians was just what he
needed.

For
a while there had been plans to collect enough money to pay for a recording
session in some cheap studio as some tracks were deemed suitable for
a single or an EP, but these plans never materialized. So when he found
out about this rehearsal place collectively hired by two others bands
and with limited recording facilities, Quorthon decided to try this
place out together with two ex-members of STRIDSKUK, by recording a
few tracks hitherto deemed too brutal to suit the original line-up.

-
Looking back, it’s obvious the original line-up wasn’t
ready by any standard. And never would be. As musicians we sucked
and the material wasn’t yet original enough. Most of what
had been written up to that point, sounded like out-takes from a
Motörhead album or anything off your general Oi-punk 45”
but with growling vocals.

- But I still felt a desperate need to do something radical, either
to split the line-up or bring about a change of some sort. There
was so much I wanted to do with this band I had just started, the
limitations of the three original members - myself included - wasn't
going to stop me.

-
So I took the opportunity with the rest of the group away, to call
in two friends of mine that I had played with in a band prior to
BATHORY called STRIDSKUK. I explained to them the situation and
they agreed to help me out.

-
We performed live in a rehearsal room, recording four songs using
as good quality equipment as I could get my hands on. We used two
short reels of basic quarter-inch tape with two good quality microphones
placed right in the middle of the room a few meters apart. We recorded
in stereo and had a ball. The session was a one-take kind of thing.

The
material recorded was intended to work as perhaps not a demo as such,
but a way to see what could be done in a more proper sort of recording
situation, as oppose to the BATHORY rehearsals that had been caught
on tape by plain cassette-recorders previously. Four songs were recorded: “Sacrifice”, “Live in Sin”, “Die In Fire”
and “You Don’t Move Me (I Don't Give a Fuck)”.

Sadly,
only the reel containing the last two tracks has survived to this day.
These would surface a decade later when the band celebrated its 10th
anniversary and released the first two JUBILEUM CD’s.
It's a nice example of what pre-debut album BATHORY anno 1983 sounded
like and was all about.

Although
Quorthon now envisioned a more detailed plan for the band for the rest
of the year, with a proper recording to listen back to, and strengthened
as he was by the positive reaction of outsiders, not much happened.
The three members would meet up down the rehearsal place less frequently.

And
from having to move the base of the band around once more - this time
to an industrial building in Solna - and still not being totally agree
on the direction of new material, the three original members of BATHORY
perhaps all felt things would never grow beyond what it all initially
had been all about anyway; a hobby and a desire to play just for fun.

- We all had a ball in the early days. We were crap musicians but
loved playing for a laugh. When we played covers it sounded like
the collision between a live-animal transport and a school bus,
and our original material sucked. But it was our own music,
stuff that we had created together. The rehearsals would
be a million laugh's and very lighthearted. It would all basically
be just for a laugh. We didn't take BATHORY - or "our band"
as we referred to it - for real anyway.

-
We were young, the times were very innocent and virtually anything
could make us fall apart from giggling. It was a great time. This
was before prestige, before a legendary status, before the albums,
before strange reviews, weird articles, misquotes and before an
array of sub-categories by which the industry would file you.

Though
nothing was really aired before or after rehearsals, it was obvious
that a change of some sort had to occur. What that change might have
been or how to accomplish anything that would re-charge the trio,
nobody knew.

But
one Autumn afternoon - for the first time ever - a fourth person would
join the trio during rehearsals. One day in late September, Jonas and
Freddan did their share of bringing about a change by showing up with
some guy to a rehearsal and went on to introduce him as the bands new
vocalist.

-
I had never seen the guy before and to this day I can't remember
what he looked like or even his name. But he stayed for the duration
of the rehearsal that day, and I think he even came back one or
two more times. Just to be a good sport, I told him it was ok with
me if he had a try at singing the material should that please the
rest of the band.

-
My vocal style at the time must have been something nobody had ever
heard of before. And the few that did said it couldn't
be called singing and that it had to be altered should we ever get
a shot at a gig or a record contract.

-
It was being described as a vocal style more reminiscent of a dead
dog choking on a goats' head or something like that. Unheard of
at the time surely, but a vocal style that very much would become
the original Black Metal-voice to an entire generation of fans and
acts alike only a year later with the debut album.

-
I really felt sorry for the guy. He had very likely already been
given more than half a promise he could join absolutely. And then
he find himself in an environment filled with inverted crosses,
chains, this evil Satanic atmosphere and a handful of lyrics containing
the blood of angels, raging hells' fire, the raping of dead witches
and what have you. He didn't know what to do with all that. He was
probably more used to sing minstrel type of song about knights in
shining armor and vestal virgins.

-
He was dead wrong for the job. It sounded like Ronnie James Dio
after a sex-change operation or something like that. And the others
must have agreed, for he slipped out of the picture without as much
as a see-ya.

Obviously
that wasn’t the change that the band was looking for. The band
was in a stalemate situation. It is very likely that all three members
felt that this was it. And none would probably have been at all surprised
had the original line-up really gone separate ways at that stage.